I like this everyone-gets-an-entry stuff.Sure there are more than 30K members, but until the last couple years it hasn't filled up, so there's plenty of history of less than 10% of the membership participating.I like the max 5 entries per day stuff too. It won't help with the explosive growth of the competition/hobby for more than a couple years but it's a start.And as for the GABF "members-only" stuff, that makes way too much sense; stop that crazy talk!

cheers----Michael

But how could you guarantee that trend would continue if everyone got one entry? I could see a situation where more people would enter since the entry was included with their membership.

I like this everyone-gets-an-entry stuff.Sure there are more than 30K members, but until the last couple years it hasn't filled up, so there's plenty of history of less than 10% of the membership participating.I like the max 5 entries per day stuff too. It won't help with the explosive growth of the competition/hobby for more than a couple years but it's a start.And as for the GABF "members-only" stuff, that makes way too much sense; stop that crazy talk!

cheers----Michael

But how could you guarantee that trend would continue if everyone got one entry? I could see a situation where more people would enter since the entry was included with their membership.

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I read his suggestion as saying members would get an option. They would still have to pay the 10$ or whatever, but they would have right of first refusal.

I like this everyone-gets-an-entry stuff.Sure there are more than 30K members, but until the last couple years it hasn't filled up, so there's plenty of history of less than 10% of the membership participating.I like the max 5 entries per day stuff too. It won't help with the explosive growth of the competition/hobby for more than a couple years but it's a start.And as for the GABF "members-only" stuff, that makes way too much sense; stop that crazy talk!

cheers----Michael

But how could you guarantee that trend would continue if everyone got one entry? I could see a situation where more people would enter since the entry was included with their membership.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I read his suggestion as saying members would get an option. They would still have to pay the 10$ or whatever, but they would have right of first refusal.

Got my Philly sheets too. Got a 40 in SHV for a Kona Oatmeal Stout and advanced to mBOS. No place awarded so assuming I am not advancing. Still happy with the score and it's consistency. Got same score for same beer in local contest and won 1st there so was hoping for advancement, but the NHC is obviously the next level.

In regards to the entry debate. Looking at the number of entries per entrants over the past 4 years as listed on the website, there's an average of 4 beers per entrant over that time. So obviously for every person entering 30+ beers, there's many entering just one. Seems like the easiest way to increase individual entrants is the idea of limiting entrants initially, but allowing additional beers to be added after a certain time period. You're still going to have the same amount of entries with a cap per region, but at least this will give additional time for those not readily available to log on a chance to get in.

I like this everyone-gets-an-entry stuff.Sure there are more than 30K members, but until the last couple years it hasn't filled up, so there's plenty of history of less than 10% of the membership participating.I like the max 5 entries per day stuff too. It won't help with the explosive growth of the competition/hobby for more than a couple years but it's a start.And as for the GABF "members-only" stuff, that makes way too much sense; stop that crazy talk!

cheers----Michael

But how could you guarantee that trend would continue if everyone got one entry? I could see a situation where more people would enter since the entry was included with their membership.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I read his suggestion as saying members would get an option. They would still have to pay the 10$ or whatever, but they would have right of first refusal.

That's the way I read it as well.

Exactly. Registration opens for a week (or whatever) for members to get their best beer in if they so choose, after which the free-for-all starts.sorry for the confusion Denny.

...whatever. we all know there's no perfect option. I am not involved in the discussions to see how the "problems" are ranked so I don't know which to address first. I'm going to assume "The final round is getting too big" ranks fairly highly so simply adding more regions isn't going to cut it for long. As stated previously maybe we have to eventually go to top 2 advance from first round instead of top 3.

Seems to me that the best solution would be to increase 1st round sites from 10 to 15, but limit those beers going on from 1st-3rd to 1st-2nd. In this case, you increase NHC entries by 30%, but keep the NHC final round at the same amount. The biggest issue here is finding 5 more suckers... I mean volunteers willing to organize. It is really a lot of work to organize. My gut says that limiting entries will not increase the entry spots enough to satisfy demand.

The biggest issue here is finding 5 more suckers... I mean volunteers willing to organize.

I think the biggest issue would be finding an additional 250 judges.

+250 on that one. Got my score sheets back on Monday and was pretty disappointed in the quality. One sheet had only 5 written words on the entire page, another had 1 or 2 entire sections of the score sheet completely blank. One judges started a sentence and didn't even bother to finish it before skipping to the final score. Lots of one line descriptions for Flavor and Aroma. Not what I expected from our National Competition and certainly not worth the $10 entry fee.

I could see how spreading out to more locations might help , but you would need to keep the number of entries for the entire competition the same. The certified judge to entry ratio needs to be improved before this competition even considers allowing more entries.

Seems to me that the best solution would be to increase 1st round sites from 10 to 15, but limit those beers going on from 1st-3rd to 1st-2nd. In this case, you increase NHC entries by 30%, but keep the NHC final round at the same amount. The biggest issue here is finding 5 more suckers... I mean volunteers willing to organize. It is really a lot of work to organize. My gut says that limiting entries will not increase the entry spots enough to satisfy demand.

I had a third place beer in the regionals several years ago that won gold in the finals, so I don't like the idea of only sending the top two. Different judge, different day.....

Logged

Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)Homebrewing since 1990AHA member since 1991, now a lifetime member BJCP judge since 1995

I had a third place beer in the regionals several years ago that won gold in the finals, so I don't like the idea of only sending the top two. Different judge, different day.....

I understand this argument, and I don't mean to be rude, but I think it's pretty weak. What about the 4th place beers that aren't making it to the finals right now? Ya gotta cut it off somewhere. I believe if more/better judges were available it would improve so this would be minimized. The saying "different judge, different day" suggests to me that winning final round gold doesn't mean that much. That's unfortunate.

A much better argument IMO would have been that the third place beer in a given region may be better than the first place beer in any other region. As long as they're giving out three medals that is a danger.

if more/better judges were available (I know, I am part of the problem, but I will work on it) we could expand the entries i would think

agreed. However, how long until the "the final round is getting too big" becomes a real issue? It's, what, 924 max entries right now? I don't know the answer. *I* haven't done final round judging; can someone who has talk about how it would work with, say, 1500 entries?

*I* haven't done final round judging; can someone who has talk about how it would work with, say, 1500 entries?

The second round involves a lot of rapid judging with the "new" checklist scoresheet. It takes judges from the conference and sits them in a room for the first day (aka Thursday) and it takes both the morning and afternoon to pull it off. The check sheet was put into place so we could get through the judging in one day because judges bowed out of judging because they didn't want to miss the conference they were paying for.

So, there's a problem there... If the second round expands in terms of time. then we're right back to the same problem as before.

that sounds about like I expected. So it sounds like someone smarter than me needs to decide on a maximum that can be handled in one day and work backwards from there. Or are you saying we are already at that number?